A woman from Connecticut suffered a traumatic event after her boyfriend’s pit bull mix bit off her nose after it was startled by her teeth-whitening device.
Thirty-year-old Olivia Quast sustained horrific injuries to her arm and face on February 3 when the six-year-old dog Bentley, belonging to her 44-year-old boyfriend, Graeme Stasyshyn, attacked her unprovoked.
Quast said she was shocked when she touched her face and couldn’t feel her nose. The dog continued to attack her after ripping off her nose and leaving her left arm with considerable injuries before she finally fought it off and called for help.
Quast thought that Bentley, who was a rescue dog and was badly abused as a puppy, might have gotten scared by her teeth-whitening device, which had a UV light, prompting him to attack her. She said during an interview that Bentley’s eyes suddenly changed during the attack, and he appeared dissociated.
Quast said that she never used to like dogs and was a “cat person” until she met her boyfriend and moved in with him and Bentley, who became the first dog that she loved.
She said that she and Bentley had a good relationship and would often snuggle in bed, so the attack was a total shock.
According to Quast, the dog lunged and bit off her nose first. She stared in disbelief and did not think he would continue attacking her, but he lunged at her again when she put her hand on her nose. The dog then bit her left arm.
She finally kicked the dog off, and it scampered away.
Quast said the first person she called was her mom before getting dizzy and collapsing on the bathroom floor.
Doctors said the dog ripped her nose, cartilage, and septum off. Luckily, her nostrils and the bridge of her nose were unaffected.
She had to undergo surgery on her left arm for doctors to install eight screws, two plates, and two pins to hold the arm together. The arm will take about a year to heal. She had to wait for her facial injuries to heal to get reconstructive surgery.
Quast and her boyfriend euthanized the dog after the attack.
